Chapter Ninety-Six: Absorption

In a particularly shabby tavern, a crowd of travelers sat drinking themselves warm and noisy.

“Hey, have you heard? They’re fighting again in the north. Who knows how many have died this time!” a drunken man shouted, drawing glances from all around.

“Oh? Which lord led the army this time?” A thin fellow lifted his cup, his face flushed red with drink and a little unsteady.

“Seems it was some baron. Beyond that, I don’t know,” the man called back, and laughter rose around him.

When the laughter finally died down and the fog of drink began to thin, the broad-shouldered man shook his head and shouted, “This time they’ve been fighting in the north for more than a month. Battlefields are everywhere.”

“Why don’t the lot of us pack up and head north to see if there’s any left-behind loot to pick up?”

The moment he said it under his breath, many around him stirred, eager to agree.

On a battlefield, the victors usually strip away the spoils. Yet battlefields are fickle places, and the land itself is chaotic; there are always remnants left behind. In especially brutal slaughterfields, the leftovers can be richly abundant.

Armor, weapons, and various materials and remnants are all a fortune enough to tempt any man.

Still, among the restless crowd, there were a few sober heads.

A big man in torn leather armor stood up and stopped them. “Have you all gone mad?”

“Never mind the ghosts that may linger on the battlefield, or the magical beasts drawn there. The patrols and knights all over the north are an even greater obstacle. If we’re discovered secretly digging up spoils, we’ll never come to any good!”

At this, the crowd quieted at once, the last traces of drunkenness vanishing completely.

After a while of silence, a sigh drifted faintly through the crowd.

“Ever since this place was occupied by the Kingdom of Endril, life’s become harder and harder.”

The speaker lowered his voice, afraid outsiders might hear.

“At first we could still make a living escorting passing merchant caravans, or taking odd jobs nearby.”

“But ever since the king surrendered, the whole situation has gone to pieces. There are far fewer caravans passing through, and even the city has begun to descend into chaos.”

He drank from his large mug of cheap ale, speaking with a depressed expression.

The others fell silent as well. Their weathered faces went dull and blank, with sighs hidden beneath them, and they simply raised their cups and slowly tasted the bitterness within.

“How about we head north and seek refuge with the Duchy of Adishu?” one voice broke the silence, though still kept low, afraid to be overheard from afar.

At the suggestion, everyone’s eyes brightened.

“Exactly! I’ve heard Adishu in the north is recruiting soldiers and officers right now! They say the treatment is excellent, with food and supplies issued every month, and land granted as well!”

“Once you join the army, every soldier gets five mu of land. If you earn merit and even become an officer, you’ll get more.”

The men spoke over one another, their eyes burning with longing and fervor.

It was an obsession with land.

In this world, commoners could not own land of their own. Aside from a few exceptions, land belonged almost exclusively to the nobility. For that reason, the people of this world possessed an extraordinary fixation on it.

Still, some hesitated, unable to fully believe it. “But with terms that generous, who knows if it’s true? Maybe it’s just false news spread from the north.”

“And even if it is true, if we want to go north and join the army, how are we supposed to get past the magical beasts and patrols along the way?”

So the crowd wavered again, all turning toward the broad man in leather armor and waiting for him to speak.

Clearly, he was the leader of this group, and held considerable authority in their eyes.

Seeing his followers like this, the leader hesitated, then said, “Whether it’s true or not doesn’t need much thought.”

“Back when I traveled north with a caravan, I once met a soldier from the Duchy of Adishu. What he told me was more or less the same as what we’ve heard, maybe even better.”

“As for the dangers along the road—”

He paused in thought. “I know a few side routes that even armies have trouble passing through. We shouldn’t be spotted by patrols. As for magical beasts, I’ve asked about that too.”

“It seems that as the armies of the two duchies keep fighting, many of the magical beasts in this region have been drawn to the battlefield and gathered there. And with the north hunting them in great numbers, so long as we’re careful and keep away from the dangerous areas, we should be able to make it through.”

He analyzed the matter calmly.

As he spoke, the eyes around him grew brighter by degrees, and the crowd was already tempted.

Before long, they hurried off one after another, clearly going to make preparations.

Farther away, a young man with a lean build and dark skin was looking at an old man before him, smiling and shaking his head.

Noticing the group’s departure, Chen Ming glanced at their backs and said nothing.

Of course he had heard their conversation. Though they had tried their best to keep it hidden, to someone like him, even with his divine power sealed away, every word was perfectly clear.

But he did not care. Instead, he continued looking at the old man before him and said, “Have you found out what I asked you to investigate a few days ago?”

At Chen Ming’s question, the old man answered with a solemn expression, “My lord, we have already confirmed it.”

“Most of the destroyed altars and totems of the ancestral gods have been bought up by passing merchants. It seems they intend to sell them as collectible curiosities with some memorial value. Others have been taken into the collections of certain nobles.”

“We’ve managed to acquire some over the past few days. When would you need them, my lord?”

Chen Ming nodded. “Take me to them now.”

So the two rose to their feet. A little later, by the time Chen Ming had followed the old man into a basement, a series of dim rooms appeared before them, faintly engraved with the emblem of the God of Nature.

Chen Ming looked on. Because they feared divine fluctuations might be detected, these emblems had not been infused with any divine power and were used purely as decoration.

This place was one of the Duchy of Adishu’s intelligence outposts in the area. A few days earlier, after Chen Ming came here and made contact, they had assumed he was an emissary from the north and had treated him with great respect.

“My lord, we’ve arrived!”

The old man’s voice came from ahead, and then one of the rooms was opened.

Chen Ming went in and saw a heap of ruins piled within: broken fragments, intact totem pillars, and other pieces of all shapes and kinds.

Yet over all these things lingered a faint red hue, making the dark cellar look eerie indeed. In the shadows, it seemed as though vengeful spirits clung to them, cursing and howling.

“Are these the things you wanted?”

The old man looked at the objects, feeling a chill run through him, and could not help but ask in puzzlement.

He had long been curious about why such things were being collected, but as an intelligence officer, secrecy was paramount, so he had never asked.

Chen Ming stood still and examined them.

In his perception, all these objects were wreathed in a faint red radiance. Though the power within them had already been drained away, the lingering essence had not yet vanished.

Sensing this, the slaughter divinity within Chen Ming began to pulse slowly, faintly seething.

“Leave first,” Chen Ming said without turning around, still studying the heap before him.

Seeing this, the old man bowed and withdrew, leaving Chen Ming alone in the room.

Looking at the traces of red before him, Chen Ming sighed inwardly. “As expected, though the power gathered through centuries of sacrifice was taken away by others, the residue of that blood offering still remains, still gathering instead of fading.”

It was a shred of slaughter’s essence born from a long blood sacrifice. Although most of it had vanished after its power was stolen, some remnant still lingered upon the original offerings.

At this moment, if a new soul were to take root in these objects and be blood-sacrificed through them, the chance of becoming an ancestral spirit would rise somewhat.

But thinking this, Chen Ming only shook his head slightly and extended a hand to touch them.

At once, a change began to stir.

The blood-red essence of slaughter seemed to be drawn by something, streaming continuously into Chen Ming’s body and converging upon his slaughter divinity.

He absorbed it one by one. By the time all of it had been taken in, fragments of insight into slaughter echoed through his mind, and another thread of slaughter divinity took shape.

Feeling this divinity condense, Chen Ming thought silently, “Blood sacrifice corresponds to slaughter. If I continue like this—if I can wipe out the ancestral gods of this entire world and absorb the slaughtering force accumulated by them over countless years—perhaps I may truly be able to condense a slaughter godhead.”

As he thought this, his consciousness shifted ever so slightly, and a glimmer of divine light quietly blossomed within the godhead, without the slightest ripple.

In his senses, the originally cyan divine radiance had begun to strengthen with an unignorable trace of pale red, slowly merging with the endless killing intent that permeated the world.